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Defeat Them

Defeat Them

Rush Limbaugh spent his career telling the country one thing. Democrats must be defeated. He said it on the air every day. He put it on the cover of the February 2001 Limbaugh Letter. A Roman warrior stands in EIB armor against the coliseum. The words beneath the figure are simple. Defeat Them!

That cover was not decoration. It was the operational summary of the work. The same imperative applies now. The radicalism that treats political opponents as existential threats has announced itself in advance. The statements began with Sen. Elissa Slotkin and Sen. Chris Murphy. They continued with Florida Senate nominee Angie Nixon, who sat next to Murphy when she spoke. They extend through the officials and candidates who would control the gavels, the committees, and the subpoena power if Democrats win the House.

The prior record under the Biden Regency and Jack Smith’s Arctic Frost shows what the posture already produced. The remedy identified in Democrats Delenda Est remains the only one that matches the scale of the problem. Electoral dismantling of the radicalism so classical liberalism can be restored. Defeat them.

The Continuum

The continuum is public. Slotkin spoke at the Carnegie Endowment on September 30. She described an “Iron Broom” of “signature cases” against “the most obvious and harmful abuses of taxpayer dollars.” She named Kristi Noem, Doug Burgum, and Jeanine Pirro. She noted that abusing taxpayer money “can land you a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.”

On October 17 at the University of Chicago she told the audience she wants young people coming out of school to ask themselves whether they should work for the Trump administration. She wants them to decide that it “might be buying myself a ton of problems that I don’t want.” She wants the deterrence message.

Angie Nixon sat next to Murphy when she made her comments. She said she wants her opponent, Sen. Ashley Moody, “locked up and punished in jail”. She said that as a senator she would call for “a full-on investigation as it relates to what Ashley Moody and them have done.” She said, “The whole damn cabinet, and the President, let’s go.” She has also said she looks forward to the House impeaching Trump “and locking him up for all of the crimes that he’s committed.”

Murphy’s pressure-campaign language and Nixon’s continuum with him are not separate from Slotkin’s deterrence message. They are the same sequence.

The Broader Record

The broader record follows. Rep. Robert Garcia, who would chair Oversight, has described a running list of “the most corrupt things that the Trump family has done.” He has named Trump’s sons, Jared Kushner, Susie Wiles, Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, and Corey Lewandowski as priorities. He has called the next Congress a “reckoning” and referred to the “Trump crime family.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin, who would chair Judiciary, has described the scope as “gargantuan.” He has said impeachment is “a tool in the toolbox” and “not a taboo.” He has stated that if the current majority refuses to act on Noem, Democrats would launch a “complete oversight and impeachment inquiry.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has said there is “a cost to the American people of the out-of-control corruption.” He has said that Democrats “are going to hold the crooks accountable.” He has promised day-one investigations and that “no one is going to get a pass.”

Rep. Yassamin Ansari has said, “Every single committee we have needs to be extremely aggressive in their areas of jurisdiction. People want to see investigations, prosecutions. They want to see people in jail.” Rep. Greg Casar has said Democrats need to be ready to dig into “any and all of it on day one.”

Rep. Maxwell Frost has listed investigating “corrupt and abusive actions within the Department of Homeland Security, including the conduct and operations of ICE,” as a priority. Rep. Christian Menefee has called the next Congress a “reckoning.” Sen. Jon Ossoff has said private-prison executives and staff “who are on Noem’s staff right now… are at some point going to have to testify under oath.”

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse has said that he and Raskin are already meeting monthly to plan “aggressive investigations and a stack of subpoenas.” These are not minority-party gestures. They are the stated intentions of those who would control the gavels.

The Pattern Already Executed

The pattern has already been executed. Jack Smith’s Arctic Frost investigation collected phone toll records from at least seventeen to twenty Republican Members of Congress. Gag orders in some cases prevented the lawmakers from learning of the subpoenas. The collection included then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Jim Jordan, Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and Marsha Blackburn.

Smith’s team also obtained text messages involving forty-four lawmakers, primarily Republicans, from White House phones via National Archives records. The same investigation obtained data on at least 639,000 Republican donors, voters, and supporters. More than 148,000 rows identified as donors. Many were small-dollar, as low as one dollar.

The data included names, dates of birth, physical addresses, email addresses, Republican registration status, occupations, and partial credit-card information. Separate returns covered buyers of red MAGA hats and related merchandise, including names and shipping addresses.

Senate Judiciary Committee releases under Chairman Grassley describe the collection as “incredibly invasive donor data and voter data beyond what could conceivably be necessary” for the special counsel’s mandate. Smith and his counsel defended the steps as lawful and limited to toll records. Republican oversight has characterized the breadth as mapping the Republican political apparatus.

The School-Board Episode

The 2021 school-board episode shows the same posture applied to ordinary citizens. On September 29 the National School Boards Association sent a letter to President Biden. It stated that “the classification of these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.” It requested federal law-enforcement assistance, including possible use of the Patriot Act and coordination with the FBI’s National Security Branch and Counterterrorism Division.

Five days later Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memorandum directing the FBI and U.S. Attorneys to address a “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence” against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff. The FBI’s Counterterrorism and Criminal Divisions created a threat tag, “EDUOFFICIALS,” to track related assessments.

House Judiciary and subsequent DOJ materials document that the FBI opened approximately twenty-five Guardian assessments involving parents. Examples included tips that noted a parent’s membership in a “right-wing mom’s group” or gun ownership. None of the assessments resulted in federal domestic-terrorism charges.

The NSBA later apologized and withdrew the letter. Internal DOJ emails show career attorneys questioning whether a federal hook existed and describing the push as political. Garland defended the memo as limited to actual threats. The episode treated parents speaking at local school boards as legitimate targets for federal investigative resources.

The Imperative

The Democrat statements for the 120th Congress are the prospective version of the same posture. Nixon’s remarks, delivered while sitting next to Murphy, sit in the continuum with Slotkin’s deterrence language. The column from last year identified the rhetorical culture that treats opponents as threats.

The record compiled here shows the institutional machinery that follows from that culture. Parents at school boards. Republican legislators and small-dollar donors. Prospective administration officials. The common thread is the treatment of ordinary political participation as a target rather than a rival.

Democrats Delenda Est adapted Cato the Elder’s phrase as a tactical imperative. Not physical destruction. Electoral dismantling of the radicalism so classical liberalism can be restored. The statements are public. The prior actions are documented in committee releases and contemporaneous reporting. The calendar is short.

The opportunity to enforce the distinction between legitimate political rivalry and the treatment of opponents as targets is the midterm itself. Rush Limbaugh spent his career telling the country what the February 2001 cover put on a single page. The statements gathered since Slotkin’s remarks, including Nixon’s continuum with Murphy, are the reason the directive still applies. Defeat them.

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James K. Bishop

James K. Bishop is a conservative writer and raconteur hailing from Texas, known for his incisive and often provocative takes on political and cultural issues. With a staunch commitment to originalist constitutional principles, he emphasizes limited government, individual liberties, and traditional American values. Active on X under the handle @James_K_Bishop, he frequently engages his audience with sharp critiques of progressive policies, media narratives, and overreaches by the federal government. His style is direct, often laced with humor and wit, which resonates strongly with his conservative followers.